My Antonia: Book III

by Willa Cather
Vividly bringing the American frontier to life, this novel traces the life of Ántonia Shimerda, an immigrant who settles among the pioneers in Nebraska.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Book I, Book II, Book III, Book IV, Book V

Here are links to Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. incongruous
    lacking in harmony or compatibility or appropriateness
    The dresser, and the great walnut wardrobe which held all my clothes, even my hats and shoes, I had pushed out of the way, and I considered them non-existent, as children eliminate incongruous objects when they are playing house.
  2. commodious
    large and roomy
    I worked at a commodious green-topped table placed directly in front of the west window which looked out over the prairie.
  3. parsimonious
    excessively unwilling to spend
    He was, I had discovered, parsimonious about small expenditures—a trait absolutely inconsistent with his general character.
  4. elliptical
    expressing oneself in an overly concise or indirect way
    When he was tired his lectures were clouded, obscure, elliptical; but when he was interested they were wonderful.
  5. veneration
    a feeling of profound respect for someone or something
    I remember vividly another evening, when something led us to talk of Dante's veneration for Virgil.
  6. canto
    a major division of a long poem
    Cleric went through canto after canto of the "Commedia," repeating the discourse between Dante and his "sweet teacher," while his cigarette burned itself out unheeded between his long fingers.
  7. fervor
    feelings of great warmth and intensity
    In the evening, as I sat staring at my book, the fervor of his voice stirred through the quantities on the page before me.
  8. fatalistic
    accepting that everything that happens is inevitable
    She handed her feelings over to the actors with a kind of fatalistic resignation.
  9. presuppose
    take for granted or as a given
    I had never heard in the theater lines that were alive, that presupposed and took for granted, like those which passed between Varville and Marguerite in the brief encounter before her friends entered.
  10. satiety
    being satisfactorily full and unable to take on more
    One could experience excess and satiety without the inconvenience of learning what to do with one's hands in a drawing-room!
  11. malady
    impairment of normal physiological function
    She moved with difficulty—I think she was lame—I seem to remember some story about a malady of the spine.
  12. pallor
    an unnatural lack of color in the skin
    Her sudden illness, when the gayety was at its height, her pallor, the handkerchief she crushed against her lips, the cough she smothered under the laughter while Gaston kept playing the piano lightly — it all wrung my heart.
  13. ineffable
    defying expression or description
    Through the scene between Marguerite and the elder Duval, Lena wept unceasingly, and I sat helpless to prevent the closing of that chapter of idyllic love, dreading the return of the young man whose ineffable happiness was only to be the measure of his fall.
  14. moribund
    being on the point of death
    Even the handkerchief in my breast-pocket, worn for elegance and not at all for use, was wet through by the time that moribund woman sank for the last time into the arms of her lover.
  15. naivete
    lack of sophistication or worldliness
    Those formal phrases, the very flower of small-town proprieties, and the flat commonplaces, nearly all hypocritical in their origin, became very funny, very engaging, when they were uttered in Lena's soft voice, with her caressing intonation and arch naiveté.
Created on Mon Mar 11 11:36:57 EDT 2013 (updated Thu Jul 31 16:35:37 EDT 2025)

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